


Which Way

by Leah_Red



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, MCR - Fandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Frerard, Frikey, M/M, Peterick, Spiderman AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:30:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leah_Red/pseuds/Leah_Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank Iero is Spiderman, and trying hard to hide that from his friends, Gerard Watson and Mikey Stacy. When one of them finds out his secret and the other falls in love with his alter-ego, he has some hard choices to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Frank hurried to hop up the stairwell of his cheap apartments, trying to pull off his pants while still leaving on his black and red tights. He needed to get out there, doing SOMETHING but NO his stupid pants weren’t coming undone. Cursing, he finally threw them down the stairs and slipped out of his hoodie. He’d just leave them there (hopefully no one stole them like last time) and come back after all this was done with.

Once he pulled on his mask and put on his webshooters he was out of there, jumping out the window and down in to the fray. It wasn’t his fault that Gerard was down there, his bright red hair obvious in the middle of the hold up, but at least he was there to take care of it. A couple of robbers- with what turned out to be fake guns- were taken out in just a few minutes. As always it was fun as hell to string them upside down from a street lamp, but that almost got him caught by the cops. Frank hopped out of there before they got a good sight of him, although he wasn’t totally unnoticed as he hid in a nearby alley.

Frank had just taken off his mask, trying to clean off some dust that had gotten under the eyepiece, when he saw some movement and color from the corner of his eye.

"H-hello?" Gerard took a few steps forward. "Are you still back here?"

"Is who still back here?" Frank grinned under his mask, that he put back on at the last second. He couldn’t help but show off, hanging upside down from some webbing right in front of him.

Gerard jumped and gasped. “Oh! Um. I was just… looking for my friend. Frank? He was there when the thing happened,” he said, waving back at the flashing police lights, “but I can’t find him.”

"Oh yeah? What’s he look like?" Frank tried to stay calm. He always wanted to know what Gerard thought about him. But was this REALLY THE BEST WAY, he asked himself.

"Short. Dark hair, cool tattoos? He takes your pictures for the paper…?" Gerard didn’t say much more, but he looked genuinely worried.

"Oh that guy. Yeah he’s fine. I told him to get outta here. Not really safe, ya feel?” He reached behind him and grabbed a camera he had stuffed under his shirt. “Though he dropped this,” he lied. “You might want to give it back.”

Gerard nodded, and Frank kind of hoped he could get out of there soon, though he didn’t want to. Being upside down for so long was giving him a headache.

"Oh and he asked me for another favor, a while ago." Frank knew he was pushing it with this but. hey what the hell what could go wrong?

"What’s that?" Gerard caught the playfulness in his voice and grinned that stupid crooked smirk that drove Frank crazy.

"He wanted to give you this." He pulled his mask up a little, just to his nose, and swung forward a little to press his lips against Gerard’s. His foot kicked against the brick wall behind him so he didn’t swing away, though Gerard pulled back first, blushing and licking his lips. 

"Ah… I… th-thanks.. I mean!" He blushed more. "I’ll give him his camera back!" Gerard turned and ran from the alley, and Frank kicked the wall again, jumping up the fire escapes to the roof before pulling his mask down.

He wanted to just sit there and watch Gerard’s bright hair until he saw someone with a familiar set of clothes in their arms running from the building he changed in.

"Hey! Fucker, stop it, those are mine!"


	2. Chapter 2

Frank sat at the back of the lecture hall, pretending not to listen. It was hard getting out of the ‘nerd’ persona he had in high school, but the tattoos had helped, as well as the almost mohawk he had going on. So had been doing his best to look like he didn’t care about his classes, though he would give anything to make sure he stayed on the Dean’s List. The only person that knew that was Mikey, one of the first friends he’d made after joining the college.

Mikey elbowed him discretely, making him look down at the board. The professor was about to erase some notes that he hadn’t gotten yet, and he made sure to note them down.

"Thanks," he mouthed silently, and Mikey only grinned and shook his head. A few minutes later when the class was dismissed, Frank gathered his things and walked out with him.

"Good thing I got your attention," Mikey said, stretching his long legs. "You almost missed that one."

"I had it," Frank whined. "You just didn’t see the notes I took."

"The notes that were just drawings of Spiderman?" When Frank blushed a little Mikey laughed and bumped in to him slightly. "If I didn’t know you any better I’d say you had a crush."

"What? No…" Frank winced internally. He’d have to tone down his obsession with his alter ego or things would get. Weird.

"Then you can come with me back to my place to study for the test next week. Come on." Mikey hooked his arm through Frank’s and turned them. Mikey lived on campus, and it was just a short walk away, but they interrupted by someone calling Frank’s name.

"Frank? Hey! Wait up!" He turned to see Gerard’s bright red hair, and he untangled himself from Mikey a little faster than he liked.

"Gerard? What are you doing here?" He ignored Mikey’s frown as he walked a few steps to meet him.

"I had a few things to do on this side of town and…" He held out a familiar digital camera. "Someone asked me to give this to you." Gerard was hiding a blush, and biting his lip.

"I thought I lost this," he bluffed. "Where did you find it? How’d you know it was mine?" Frank hid a shiver. It was hard to suddenly remember those lips and not want to wish it was him biting them.

"Um. A mutual friend," was all Gerard said, before taking a look a Mikey and blushing again. "I better go. Tell, uh." He leaned closer. "Tell Spiderman I said hi next time you see him I guess."

Gerard was almost as bright as his hair by the time he turned and practically ran away. Mikey looked vaguely possessive as he walked over and looked at the camera. “What’s that?”

"Oh, something I lost working the other day." The battery wasn’t out and he flipped through a few pictures. If anyone knew he was Spiderman they’d see a camera full of laaaame selfies but what did they know? Frank was basically getting paid to take pictures of himself and he was perfectly fine with that.

"Those are so cool!" Mikey looked like he wanted to take the camera and look at them himself. "Come back to my place and we can study. and maybe I can have a few of those?"

Frank nodded after a second, hitching up his pants that were starting to slip down and show his superhero tights underneath. “Yeah sure.”

Going to Mikey’s to study was a bad idea. It didn’t take long for any talk of class to turn to Spiderman, and soon Frank rolled his eyes and just handed over the camera. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he muttered under his breath, pulling his pants up again. These stupid jeans were from a cheap second hand store and they fit well the day before, but they were stretched out and falling off his ass now.

"I don’t know how you get such cool pictures," Mikey said, flipping through them for the third or fourth time.

"Lots of awkward climbing and hanging off flag poles," he grumbled, which was the truth. "Here let me out." Frank pushed at Mikey’s stupidly long legs to get off the bed. "I’ll go grab us some snacks or something."

"What? Oh no, sorry-" Mikey stood up at the same time Frank took a step, and stepped on the edge of his jeans.

Frank fell to the floor with his pants pulled down to his knees and a very obvious set of black and red tights was practically staring back at Mikey.

 

"No… no fucking way…" His eyes were wide as Frank cursed and pulled them back up.

"Don’t tell anyone, you have to swear, I mean it Mikey!"

"No fucking way! You’re-!" He looked at the camera. "You get paid to take pictures of yourself!!"

Frank pushed Mikey back down on the bed, pushing his hand on his mouth. “Shh!! Be quiet!” he hissed. “You cannot tell ANYONE. Do you understand? If anyone knew you knew who I was, if they tried to do something to get to me-“

Mikey pushed him away, a wondering look in his eyes. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” He glanced over at Frank’s backpack. “Do you have the rest? Of your costume?”

He nodded. “yeah but I’m not gonna-” Before he could finish, Mikey was already peeking through, asking what it was made out of and how he made it, and all sorts of questions. But it meant he sat super close to Frank and that was nice. Very nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is really lame, it's a first draft. It'll get better, don't worry


	3. Chapter 3

Pete turned off the TV. It was just local news, some sort of coverage over that spider kid, whoever it was. It didn't matter, Patrick wasn't watching it anyway.

He sighed, adjusting the blankets of the hospital bed. Patrick was getting worse every day. The doctors didn't seem to know what was wrong, and nothing they tried was helping at all. They had said something about a sort of sound therapy as their next resort, though they didn't tell Pete anything other than that. But he had been doing his own research.

Patrick opened his eyes when Pete leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. "Pete?" His voice was soft, barely loud enough to understand. "Where are you going?"

"Just... gonna go talk to your doctors, okay? Go back to sleep. I'll be back soon." He took the maroon cardigan from the chair and put it around Patrick's shoulders.

"Okay." He leaned back, giving Pete a worried look. "Be careful."

"What for? I'll be fine." Pete gave him an easygoing smirk as he left, but it disappeared as soon as he left the room. He had a lot to take care of, and he had to do it fast.

\--

Frank tapped his foot in the newspaper office. He had to hurry up and get out of there, but NO, of course it was going to take forever for his boss to talk to him. He could seen Brendon yelling on the phone, looking out the window.

"Do I care that The Inquirer has better pictures of Spiderman than the Bugle? Are you fucking kidding me!? Of course I fucking care who the hell do you think I am, some bottom feeder paper boy-"

"He found out some of the pictures you turned in last week got stolen," Ray said, rubbing his temple and staring at the paperwork on his desk. "I don't know if you can get in to see him yet." Brendon's secretary had been a friend of Frank's before he started there, and had helped him get the job in the first place, after he saw some of his Spiderman selfies on facebook.

"You sure? I got some good ones, better than the trash that got stolen." Frank tapped a file on his hand, full of printed proofs and a usb drive with more photos on it.

Ray shook his head, his curly mane of hair shaking with him. "Alright... if you say so." He pressed a button on the desk and watched through the window as Brendon scowled at him.

"Frank's got more pictures, he says they're better than the ones that got ganked."

Brendon looked at both of them suspiciously, and Frank put on his best 'please give me money' grin. Brendon rolled his eyes dramatically and pushed a button on his desk. "FINE but hurry up, I'm on major fucking damage control." He spat out a curse at his phone and ended the call with a dramatic gesture.

Ray gave him a good luck thumbs up and Frank hurried in to the office, holding the file of photos in front of him. "I got some good ones that are way better here just look." He knew better than to try to converse with Brendon when he was like this.

The editor-in-chief snatched them away and looked at them, spreading them out on his desk after shoving aside some rolling papers and a plastic baggie that Frank did his best to ignore. Brendon's anger went from 'I will bite someone if they look at me wrong' to 'I might push you out the window but I'd give you a chance to run away first.'

"These are really fucking good." He sat down and pointed one out. "How the hell did you even get this one?"

"I asked an old lady to let me in so I could hang out her office window." It was only a half lie- he was hanging out an office window when he placed his camera, but he didn't expect to get caught, especially wearing only his mask and regular street clothes. She nearly pushed him off with a broom until he managed to swing away.

"Well don't fucking fall, I need your ass to get me pictures." He nodded and fished out the usb. "More?"

"More."

"Good. Ross had better be feeling the heat now," he grumbled.

"Wait, RYAN stole the pictures?" Frank was shocked. Little Ryan Ross? With the vests and scarves and hats? He had been in charge of running to accidents and crashes to take pictures... it must have been too much for him.

"That's the biggest guess we've got. No one's seen him since The Inquirer got your photos so..." Brendon shook his head. "Doesn't matter. These are good, I'm feeling generous, go get your normal check times two and get the fuck out."

Frank turned and left before his boss changed his mind. It wasn't very often that he got any sort of bonus and depending on Brendon's mood it could go from double to half his normal pay. So he left, and heard him yelling on the phone as soon as the door clicked shut.

"Damn. That went better than I expected." Ray looked impressed, getting out a book of checks. "Good work. Shame what happened to Ryan though. I would never have put him up for a stealing kind of guy."

"Me neither." He put the check safely in his pocket and shook his head. Frank didn't know much about him but he thought he'd try and get in touch. He wasn't mad about the theft- the pictures he had taken were basically trash to him, ones where he was half out of focus, or grainy as fuck. But something had to be up for the younger photographer to feel he couldn't do anything but steal.

Frank shouldered his backpack and headed home. He had a big day tomorrow with Mikey and he wanted to make sure he would be able to make it.

\--

"You almost didn't make it. I thought we'd have to leave without you." Mikey elbowed Frank in the side, grinning. "Busy last night with your second job?"

"Maybe just a little. You'd be surprised how busy a Thursday night is." Frank laughed a little. His 'second job' was masquerading as Spiderman, and Mikey was the only other person who knew. They were on a sort of optional field trip for their physics class, and Frank was more than happy to get away from the university and spend a little time with his friend. It felt like the biggest relief to be able to relax and not worry about a slip of the tongue or forgetting himself and talking about his alter ego.

"Well now it's no time for second jobs and all kinds of time for SCIENCE," he said dramatically, pushing Frank in front of him. They were in one of Oscorp's many labs, this one dedicated to sonic atomic manipulation. The tour guide said they were working on a way to pinpoint sources of disease, like cancerous cells for example, and destroy them with special non-invasive procedures.

"This is pretty cool..." Frank bumped in to Mikey as someone in a black hoodie pushed past him, hurrying down the hall. He was nearly knocked down by a large case he had on his back that almost looked like it would have a guitar in it.

"Rude." He laughed as his friend helped him back to his feet and they continued the tour.

"This is one of our most advanced labs," the tour guide announced. They were all at a set of thick windows, looking down on to a room mostly surrounded by soundproof padding and baffles. "The most sensitive tests are carried out here, with the most powerful sonic instruments we have."

Frank looked down in to the room. It was hard to make out any of the tools and instruments, but he could see huge speakers surrounding an empty spot. Suddenly he got a chill, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me..." The feeling got stronger as he saw someone open a door in to the lab- the same person that shoved him aside earlier. "Mikey," he whispered softly.

"Huh? What's up?"

"Get out of here. Start walking, slowly, towards the door."

"Wait did you-"

Frank couldn't take his eyes off the stranger as he shoved away scientists in lab coats and got out what looked like a bass guitar from the case he carried in.

"Go!" he hissed.

Mikey left, pulling at a few people and convincing them to start walking back towards the exit. No one else noticed what was going on until there was a sound loud enough to be heard through the thick, soundproof glass. The stranger's guitar was plugged in to one of the panels and he was hurrying to twist knobs and turn up the sound until the glass was shaking dangerously.

"Everybody get down!" Frank used his strength to tackle down a group of people just seconds before the glass exploded outwards, and he covered his ears to try to keep out the noise that was louder than anything he'd heard before. His ears were ringing painfully even with his hands still over them, and he couldn't hear the sounds of panic around him. He was the first up, looking down in to the room. The guy in the hoodie was suspending in midair in the circle of giant speakers, barely holding his guitar in his hand. Frank could see the man screaming in pain, though he couldn't hear it. He had to get this to stop.

Knowing that this would hurt, as quickly as he could move he took his right hand off his ear and reached in to his pocket, pulling out one of his webshooters. It had seemed like a stupid precaution to take but now he was glad he had it with him. He reached through the broken window and did his best to aim for the cord that connected the guitar to the speaker set up. Somehow he hit it and pulled back as fast as he could. The sound suddenly cutting off was deafening in and of itself, and he could see the man collapse to the floor.

Emergency personnel were already running in to check on everyone, and Frank hurried to hide his webshooter back in his pocket. He could hardly hear anything and when he reached up to see why his face felt wet, his hand came back bloody. His nose was bleeding pretty badly, but he didn't seem to be too badly hurt. Even his hearing was already starting to return, though it looked like that might be because of his toughened physique. Everyone else was in a worse state than him.

Eventually Frank was able to wave off the people trying to give him medical attention after accepting some gauze to clean himself up. He stood up and looked in to the room- there were some scientists on the floor, surrounded by paramedics. It didn't look like any of them were moving... and the man who started it all was gone.

Mikey grabbed him in a tight hug once he was outside, not caring about the smudges of blood still running down his nose and chin. "Holy shit what the hell happened?!" he asked, not letting him go.

"I- I don't know. I stopped it but-" Frank took a breath and pushed him away. "We should go. I tell you when we're at a safer place."

\--

Pete collapsed on the sidewalk. He didn't know where he was, or how he got out of that place. His ears were still ringing and his whole body hurt and everything was making NOISE. He covered his ears and curled up around his guitar. Patrick. Patrick, his Trick, his best friend, he had to get back to him somehow...

Someone touched his shoulder and he flinched, looking up at them. They were talking but he didn't understand them, the noise was too loud, too much. The person reached out to help him up but they moved too fast. He pushed them away and when he did the noise suddenly stopped.

He was almost ready to cry, the silence felt so good. Instead Pete pushed himself back up to his feet and started walking again. The chaos left behind him didn't even register. Not the person pushed across the street and through a shopfront window, not the blaring car alarms or the pieces of asphalt torn up from the road. Nothing mattered to him but getting back to Patrick and making him better and NOTHING was going to get in his way.


	4. Chapter 4

Frank peered over the edge of the building and down to the street below. Just an hour ago someone had caused this. He could hardly wrap his mind around it, even though he'd gone without costume with Mikey and asked around. A PERSON had somehow carved out a three foot deep channel across the street and shattered windows around the block. He guessed it wasn't that strange, given what he could do as Spiderman, but it was still something that was a little hard to wrap his mind around.

Mikey was still down there, asking questions and finding out more, when he started to head in the direction the guy had gone. Kind of short, black hoodie, and a guitar. That definitely wasn't a coincidence. Frank had a suspicion that whoever had gone in to that sound chamber hadn't left it without some sort of change.

Nothing down below him seemed out of place once he got a few blocks away from the original scene though, and he wondered if he should go back down and talk to people when there was something that caught his attention.

"Hey!! Hey over here!!" Frank saw a familiar redhead bouncing up and down on a rooftop garden. He knew he shouldn't but... oh what the hell? He turned and landed on the edge of the roof, smiling down at Gerard before hopping down to be on equal footing.

Gerard was grinning like an idiot, and to be honest so was Frank- but at least his face was hidden. No one else was on the rooftop, but Frank could catch what sounded like a bit of a party from an open door.

"So, Frank said you got his camera back to him."

"Oh. Yeah, he's kind of hard to track down sometimes."

"That's good. He really likes that one." That was an out and out lie, that camera was shitty and beat up but what did he care? "And... I kind of maybe lied last time we talked."

"Lied? Lied how?" Gerard was biting his lower lip, looking like he was waiting for something.

"That kiss... wasn't from Frank. It was from me."

Gerard blushed and was about to say something when one of the party-goers peeked out the door way.

"Gerard hurry up! You're missing out, man!"

"Yeah yeah, I'll be right there!" The door shut and he looked for Frank. "Hey... did you leave?" Gerard pouted slightly.

Frank stuck a hand up over the side of the roof, where he had jumped to hide. "Sorry. Don't want to get caught up here with you."

"So am I a secret?" He put his elbows on the top of the brick wall, just a little more than waist high, and looked down at Frank.

"Maybe. Just a little one." Frank wanted to just let go and drop to his death. What was he doing?! Gerard couldn't ever find out who he was, it was bad enough Mikey knew-

"Then maybe we can meet again? Please?"

"Uh. I'm not sure how that would work-"

"You have a phone right?" Gerard had his out, ready to send a text. Frank cursed and wanted to disappear. Gerard had his number, since they were casual acquaintances; he couldn't give it to him again. He wracked his brain for how to answer. "Or can you not give it to me? Is that some sort of superhero thing?"

"Yeah it's kind of a superhero thing," he said quickly. "Actually." Now that he remembered Gerard had his number, thanks to a project they had in school way back when... "Do you have Frank's number? He's told me a lot about you, so I figured-"

"Are you sure it's the same?"

"Just text him when you want to meet up with me, and he'll let me know. I'll make him my official liaison or some shit." He shrugged, and realized he was still hanging on to the side of a wall. "But yeah I gotta go. I'll talk to you later!" Before he had the chance to embarrass himself any more, Frank kicked off the wall and launched himself away from Gerard. He wasn't at all surprised when just a few seconds later he felt a buzz on his hip, where he kept his phone in place with a little bit of elastic sewn in to the inside of his tights.

Only when he saw that he had gone several blocks thinking about Gerard did he realize that he should have turned back to the scene of the incident a while ago. There was nothing he would find from up there.

Frank didn't get to see the text until almost an hour later. He had to go back down to street level, find his clothes and change back, and then meet up with Mikey. He hadn't found out much more by the time they made it back to Mikey's apartment.

"So as far as we know, it's just... some guy?" Frank sat on the bed, blowing his nose. It was still bleeding a little.

"Some guy that talked about someone named Patrick. Are you sure you're okay? They carted everyone else off to the hospital." Mikey put on his glasses that usually sat abandoned on his bedside table.

"I'm fine, I promise." Frank tried to fend off Mikey but soon he was sitting there with warm hands on his cheeks, tilting his head around and peering at him critically.

"Hmm. I guess..." Mikey didn't let go right away though. He leaned a little closer and Frank felt himself blush. "How are your ears?"

"What? I couldn't hear you." Frank laughed when he finally got pushed away. Mikey looked a little angry but also like he wanted to laugh too. He grumbled to himself, smiling a little, as Frank finally checked his phone.

The only message on there was from Gerard. 'Frank!! Call me ASAAAAAAP' He wouldn't call, not while Mikey was there. He felt a little guilty about having to hide it, but. Whatever, it wasn't a huge fucking deal.

'what do u want' Frank sent back, hoping that he wasn't sounding too rude.

'SPIDERMAN said you could set up a meeting pls pleeeeeeeeease do it frnk i'll love u forever'

Frank bit his lip. He wasn't doing anything tomorrow night... 'your apt roof saturday night' he texted back, after waiting a few minutes. He had to pretend he was talking with someone else after all.

'YES THX UR THE BEST <3'

He flopped back on the bed, not able to keep a little bit of a smile off his face. It was still there when he fell asleep and Mikey covered him with a blanket.

\--

Mikey looked down as he tucked Frank in and connected his phone to a charger. He didn't want to tuck him in. He wanted to be in bed with him, to hold him and kiss him and- He caught himself blushing, shaking his head. And other things, that he shouldn't want to do. Instead, he only touched his cheek briefly and went downstairs. Frank probably didn't even like him anyway.

\--

The hospital corridor was empty, too empty even for the middle of the night. It wasn't his fault it had taken so long for him to get there. He had to new clothes and a case for his guitar. That had taken forever and he SAID he would pay them back. It also wasn't his fault that they tried to stop him from getting back to Patrick. What he did after that was on their own heads, sometimes literally. It wasn't like he had wanted to destroy the stores. Nothing could stop him from getting to Patrick and making him better.

"What do you mean I can't go in?" Pete's voice sounded too loud as he talked to a nurse stationed outside of Patrick's room. It wasn't his fault he had been gone all day.

"There's- we're not supposed to let you- anyone in," she said, and Pete frowned.

"Why not? I need to see him." He took a step forward and the nurse pressed back against the door.

"P-please! He's asleep!"

"Oh." Pete nodded and took a step back. He'd gotten kicked out overnight before. This wasn't as bad as he thought. "I'll come back tomorrow."

He shouldered his guitar case and walked towards the stairs. One more day wasn't going to change anything.


End file.
